Page 48 of Love Me Steadfast
“Can you play ‘Blackbird’?” Morgan asks Jesse, eyeing Charlotte.
Charlotte’s eyes freeze.
“Heck yeah,” Jesse says, running through a couple of chords. He eyes Morgan, eyebrows perked.
Morgan tugs on Charlotte’s hand, but she resists. “You go ahead,” she whispers.
“Come on, Charlie,” Ray calls from next to me.
She gives her dad an anxious glance, but I see a flicker of determination in herexpression.
“Let’s hear it,” I add. Though I’m not exactly sure what’s holding Charlotte back. She’s in choir so she couldn’t be nervous.
Her eyes find mine, and her lips twitch. Almost a smile? Or maybe it’s a grimace.
“Only if you want to,” I say, but the fire is crackling and Jesse is strumming, waiting for his accompaniment, so I don’t know if she hears me.
The tension in her face softens, so maybe she did? Could my encouragement mean something to her? “Okay.”
Theo gives a loud whistle.
Charlotte lets Morgan drag her to her feet. They eye each other, and Morgan grins.
“One, two,” Jesse murmurs while tapping his heel in sync, then his fingers strum a haunting series of chords.
Both Morgan and Charlotte watch him, nodding along, then suck in a breath and in tandem, launch into a duet, their voices pure and sharp as glass. Chills wash down my back, sending goose bumps rippling down both my arms.
I barely hear Jesse’s guitar, thanks to my ears buzzing with Charlotte’s sultry notes. She sways as she sings the moody, pretty words, like she can’t help but move. Morgan’s higher pitch complements her sister’s perfectly as their voices rise in volume to the end of the chorus. To my surprise, Charlotte closes her eyes as she croons a solo verse, her voice at once stunningly powerful and perfect, about a bird with broken wings melting into the light of a dark sky. I forget how to breathe, or maybe I’m afraid to, in case I miss even a fraction of it.
They perform in perfect harmony, like the three of them were somehow one single organism in a former life. How is that possible? Maybe it’s the song’s simplicity, or the way Morgan and Charlotte’s voices intertwine effortlessly. No doubt this is not their first duet.
Morgan sings the final verse this time, another clue that they’ve likely sung this many times before, each of them taking a turn to showcase their individual talents. Her final notehangs in the air while Jesse completes the last verse, his chords and Charlotte’s soft hum layered beneath it.
The bonfire pops, but nobody says a word. I don’t know where to look. At Charlotte’s face, so pretty in the firelight, a soft blush coloring her neck and working up to her freckled cheeks. Or her mouth, which, in this moment, I want to kiss so badly it’s like she’s reached into my chest to squeeze my heart.
Ray claps first, and the rest of us join in with whistles and whoops.
Laughing, Morgan takes a small bow. Charlotte’s smile is more subdued, but that blush gives her away. She enjoyed herself just now. That I got to share it feels…special somehow. Our eyes lock, and that ache in my chest sharpens. I’m so glad she’s here to celebrate my birthday, but in this moment it doesn’t feel like enough. Even though I’ve tried to turn off how I feel about Charlotte, I can’t. I see her in the halls and can’t help drinking in her long legs and silky hair, those tiny freckles and her pretty hazel eyes. I tease her when she’s tutoring me just to hear her sweet laugh, and I lean in close so I can savor her sweet ginger scent. I wake up in the middle of the night thinking about her, my need to touch her like a hot ache under my skin.
Keeping it all a secret is starting to make me crazy.
The morningof our driving lesson, the soft blue horizon is stacked with big clouds, like it might rain. When I reach Charlotte’s house, Theo’s truck and their dad’s BMW fill the driveway so I park on the curb. When I turn off the engine, the quiet is broken by the shouting going on inside their house.
“That’s not fair!” Sounds like Morgan.
“Those are the rules, Mo.” I recognize Ray’s firm, gravelly voice.
“Well the rules suck!”
Charlotte slips through the door, her face blank while theargument rages on from the depths of the house, and beelines for my truck. She’s wearing wide-leg jeans that hug her narrow hips, her trademark Converse high tops, and a blue puffy coat.
“Hey,” I say as she climbs in. Her shiny, honey-brown hair is loose about her face today, and her lips are a soft pink.
“Hey.”
I nod at the house while she buckles her seatbelt. “Everything okay?”
Charlotte pulls one knee up, wrapping her arms around it like she needs something to hug. I fight the urge to make that thing me.
